48 Beers
by Fayth3
Summary: Musing at the bottom of a bottle ma, ml but ml shippers will not like it.
1. 48 Beers

48 Beers

Author- Fayth

Rating- PG13

Disclaimer- I own nothing

Pairing- M/L- but shippers won't like it.

Genre- Angst.

Summary- answers at the bottom a bottle.

It's the Post-Pulse age old question- how many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk?

Not just tipsy but rip-roaring, forget your own name, drunk? Forget EVERYTHING drunk?

I know the answer; it takes two double shots of scotch, one bottle of Jack and 48 beers before the world becomes tolerable.

Before life doesn't seem to so bad and the blur at the bottom of the bottle is the most important thing in the world.

More important than the so-called normal life that you gave everything up for.

I thought that everything would be different once me and Logan got the cure for the virus; you know that pesky Manticore spliced one that meant that we couldn't touch?

Well now we could touch- we could finally be together and be happy right? Have the normal life that I've dreamed about since I ran away from Manticore.

Well now I have the life that everyone else has.

I wake up to the sound of the love of my life tapping away on the keyboard on his one man mission to save the world. I turn over and try to lose myself in the cold sheets but before long I have to get up and have the inevitable argument that follows my less than enthusiastic response to having to get ready for work. But I still go to my boring 9-5 job that Logan got for me to pay our rent so he can carry on with his Eyes Only missions without having to worry about something as trivial as cash.

I slave in a job that I hate with people that look down on me because I am a transgenic, and are unable to fire me due to Discriminations Act 10 vii, in which it is illegal to fire someone because they are transgenic, yet it is perfectly acceptable to hound them out of one.

I get hit on by customers who think all transgenics are easy and I can't retaliate because I'd lose my job.

I come home to the sound of the love of my life tapping away on his keyboard on his one man mission to save the world and, if I'm lucky, he'll have remembered to cook me some pasta before the inevitable argument about me going to Terminal City to spend some time with my friends.  He thinks that now we are together I shouldn't spend as much time as I do with them because I'm more human than they are. What he fails to understand is that no matter what I do I will always be a transgenic and I'm proud to be. I also will always feel responsible for unleashing them on the world and I genuinely want to help them to integrate like me… well maybe not exactly like me.  

Of course since Alec was made governor, Logan is doubly intolerant of me going, saying that Alec should shoulder the whole responsibility and that it will be good for him. 

I head out to Terminal City and spend a few hours lying to my friends, pretending that life is perfect before coming home to the sound of the love of my life tapping away on his keyboard on his one man…and now one house broken X5's mission to save the world.

He'll have some Eyes Only mission that I have to go on, even while he lectures…sorry…lovingly corrects, me that crime is wrong. Sometimes there'll be a shindig that he can't get out of and I will have to transform from cat burglar to debutante and listen to old men talk shop and try to grope me but I can't say or do anything about it because I am the transgenic mouthpiece who speaks for the nation. 

If my mouth does happen to run away with me I can guarantee a lecture…sorry…loving correction from the love of my life on the stony ride back to his penthouse apartment.

Then if he is not too tired a quick roll in the hay before I fall asleep to the sound of the love my life tapping away on his keyboard on his … you get the picture.

Ladies and Gentlemen- my normal life.

Of course what Logan doesn't know is that I sneak out at night and come to Dive.

It's not as upmarket as Crash- imagine that, a place less classy than Crash.

Dive is really a dark, damp hole in the wall bar, no one I know would ever even step foot in here—the basis of its appeal.

The décor is more post-apocalypse than post- pulse, the main theme being dirt black and it's frequented by bikers and prostitutes- the down and out and desolate. I guess I fit in here.

The night ends with a brawl rather than a bang and it's a great way to relieve tension.

At first the barman had a bit of trouble with a woman drinking alone in his bar, in his eyes it was a recipe for a disaster that he couldn't afford to avert.

But after a would-be rapist lost three front teeth and the use of his limbs, old barkeep lets me stay, uninterrupted and pushes the beers home.

I'm great insurance for him. He knows how I love to be left alone and peaceful and so any sign of a brawl that breaks more than it takes and he calls on me…I sort it out and get the Jack on the house. 

Call me the in-house bouncer.

Yeah Dive is my kinda place. You know they used to say that no matter what happened humans would always need the basics- food and clothes and fuel and if you managed to stockpile or get in the market you had it made.

They forgot that alcohol is number one on that list. 

See even folks that can't afford clothing on their backs can somehow afford to buy liquor and it helps them forget that they can't afford to eat.

I can. I can afford to eat, clothe and still have enough left to drink myself into a transgenic stupor.

It gets expensive though, I don't know Alec managed it.

Alec.

Dammit.

I promised I wouldn't think about him tonight but it always happens about halfway through my thirtieth beer. He's the only one who can see through fake-happy Max. His piercing green eyes ferret out my lies and softly beg me to be happy. Of course I always push him away. Always. 

No matter how much I want to fall into his arms and cry. 

No matter how much I want him to hold me and to tell him that I made a mistake and I appreciate the fact that he always has my back. 

No matter how much I want to tell him that he's the best part of my day and the only thing I ever look forwards to…that I love him. 

No matter what- I push him away.

Because I'm too proud to tell him that I've forgotten how to be happy. 

Forgotten what it's like to smile, to love, to live, to be free.

Forgotten what it's like to feel anything but being alone and hurt and trapped.

So I'll hunch myself over on my barstool, count the seconds until I'll see Alec again and try to forget the normal life that awaits me at the end of the bottle.

How many drinks does it take to make a transgenic forget?

Two to go.


	2. 48 Beers II

48 Beers II

The Post-pulse age old question- how many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk is open to speculation.

Drunk enough to what? To forget his own designation? About two bottles of whisky and a tequila slammer.

To forget orders? Three bottles of scotch and a beer chaser.

Then there's forgetting your first love.

After Rachel died I spent a lot of time researching that one. Bar after bar, night after night. I finally hit on the solution at 3am in some bar in San Francisco. 

It takes two double shots of scotch, one bottle of Jack and 48 beers.

Classic combination.

Of course most barkeeps will stop serving you after the twenty-sixth beer. 

Some stop after the Jack.

But find a disreputable bar that cares more for cash than clientele and hand him a wad of green and he'll keep sliding them over, no matter what angle you end up at.

Of course once they find out you're a transgenic- the price of beer goes up and so do the breakages.

Which is why I'm constantly on the trawl for a new place to research my latest addition- how many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk enough to forget that the one woman that you love more than life itself is so unhappy that you can taste it, so in pain that you bleed and so alone that you can feel it…and there's nothing you can do about it?

Yeah. I'm in love with Max. 

It came as a shock to me too. 

One minute she's bruising my arm and calling me a screw up and the next, I can't live without her. 

I always knew that love sucks.

Hell, she knew that, told me so herself. But this is beyond that.

My first love died in a car bomb that I planted myself and yet still somehow this is worse than that. 

How? Well at least Rachel is now at peace but Max- Max is still suffering.

I saw her face the first day that Logan handed her the cure. One third relief, one third dread and one third- resignation.

She was already trapped and she knew it. My heart broke for her then and it breaks just that little bit more every time I see her with her smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes and the blank look on her face.

No one believes that smile, even though she thinks that she has them all fooled. O.C, Joshua and even Sketchy can see right through it. But she won't turn around and fight it, fight like we know she can and we don't know what to do and how to help her.

She won't fight because… hell I don't know. Why does she stay with him, I know she doesn't love him.  Is it obligation, duty, is he blackmailing her with something?

Why does she put up with his lectures…sorry…loving correction and his blatant condescension of her transgenic side?

Why the hell does she stay?!

Oops another glass broken and the barkeep comes along and gently shoos me out of the door. 

So I leave this place and try to look for another dump with lower morals; somewhere that won't glare if you get glass on the floor or blood on the bar.

You know I am a genetically enhanced killing machine, I could kill Logan Cale twenty three ways just using his glasses- another fourteen if I leave the screws in, and I would, joyfully and with a smile that would make my happy-go-lucky sociopathic murdering brother jealous- if it didn't mean that Max would never speak to me again. 

But I figure it would be worth it if it meant that she was free and could someday smile again and mean it. 

Dammit- I promised not to think about her tonight...or any night. But around my thirtieth beer she always comes to the mind that she is never far from anyway.

Once the haze begins to drift she returns in full force.

Her living her normal life, trying to be happy with the love her life, who she no longer loves,  as he constantly taps away on his  keyboard on his one man mission to save a world that will never accept us.

Never accept her like we can, like I do.

But I can't let her know that she is the one I live for, the reason I stay and the reason that I took the ridiculous job of governor of Terminal Ratheap.

She'd just push me away- so used to being the only one she can rely on, so used to me being her smart Alec, screw up sidekick that she could never see me as anything else.

But I will not waver. I'll be here for her silently bringing her to life with my taunts and getting her back whether she knows, or cares, I'm there or not.

I'll be here as long as she needs me and I'll love her as long as I live. I'll wait until she sees me- really sees me.

But until then I'll find another dirt bar…like this one, full of bikers and prostitutes, the down and out and desolate where I fit in, count the seconds until I can see Max again and I can research my addition to that question.

How many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk enough to forget that the one woman that he loves more than life itself is so unhappy that he can taste it, so in pain that he bleeds and so alone that he can feel it…and there's nothing he can do about it?

How many?

I'll let you know.

The End.


End file.
